Never as it seems
by sentbyravens01
Summary: AU fic : Cloud has never had a simple life, his always dealing with bullies and past problems. One day a new student arrives and could he help Cloud see his true self. But life is never that simple. Pairing ZackxCloud and possibly more later on. ON HIATUS
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

I do not own Final fantasy

Sorry if this chapter is short, it's just the beginning of the story

Pairing – ZackxCloud and past RenoxCloud

It was normal day at Shinra academy. The bell rang for the end of another day at school, the students swarmed out of the classrooms and made there way back to the dorms. Apart from one student named Cloud, he had blonde spiky hair and big blue eyes that were covered by his glasses, he wore a white shirt with a red tie which was covered over by a cream v-neck jumper that was too big for him and just a plain pair of tight black trousers.

He stayed sat in the classroom staring out of the window watching the clouds drift across the sky. "Cloud, you do know that the lesson is over." the teacher told Cloud. Cloud nodded and finally got out of his seat walked out the classroom. Cloud made his way over to the boys' dorms, he didn't like the boys' dorms, they were filled with bullies that would forever pick on Cloud because of his weak frame and girlish looks.

Cloud walked down the hallway and up the stairs to get to his room, he noticed that everyone looked at him as he walked down the corridor to get to his room. "Oi blondie, where's your boyfriend!" on boy shouted and the others around him laughed. Tears brimmed Clouds eyes, but he carried on walking. He finally reached his room, he dumped his things onto the floor and fell face first onto the pillow. Cloud spent the night crying until he fell asleep.

XxXxXxX

The next morning Cloud was rudely awaken by the sound of his door being slammed open. Cloud looked up from the pillow and saw a very tall black haired man, he was well built ans he had blue eyes and a scar on his right cheek. Cloud picked up his glasses from his bedside table and put them on. He blinked a couple of times and stared at the boy. He wore the same uniform as him, but minus the cream jumper.

"Who are you?" Cloud questioned the black haired boy.

"I transferred here today and they said that this room had a spare bed that I could stay in fr the mean-time" the boy said to Cloud, Cloud gave him a strange look and tilt his head to the side, "oh sorry, the name's Zack, and you are..."

"Cloud" Cloud replied, Zack smiled and set his stuff down next to the spare bed next to Clouds.

"Nice to meet you Cloud." Zack said to Cloud.


	2. Friends ?

**Chapter one – Friends ?**

I do not own Final Fantasy

The room was silent, Zack finished packing away his things and perched himself on Clouds bed. Cloud didn't pay attention to him and carried on reading book that he had found in a draw in a desk, that was beside his bed. Zack leaned over and snatched the book that he was reading from his hands. "So Cloud" Zack started of trying to break the silence, "what're you reading? It doesn't look interesting, there's no pictures in it. " he questioned as he flicked through the book. Cloud stared at the dark haired boy for a moment. Cloud sighed 'has he never read a book before' he thought.

"It's called using your imagination," Cloud sarcastically said to Zack He then realised what he did he was about to apologise, but was interrupted by Zack chuckling from the blonde comment.

"You sure are funny Cloud." Zack said as he handed the book over to Cloud. Cloud gave him a confused look and went back to reading his book. The one thing that Zack noticed is that Cloud didn't really like talking to others, he would rather stay indoors and do his own thing.

Zack got of the the bed, "Do you mind if I look around?" he asked Cloud, who looked up and nodded and went back to reading his book.

Zack walked around the room for a bit until something caught the corner of his eye. He walked over to where Cloud had kept some photos of him and a boy with vibrant red hair. One of them was of Clod kissing the cheek of the red haired boy, whilst the other boy had his arm slung around Clouds shoulder. 'Maybe it was a relative of some sort or a close friend of his' Zack thought.

"Hey Cloud who's this," he asked looking at Cloud. Cloud looked up from his book and looked at the photos on the desk. Clouds eyes saddened at looking at the photo. Zack noticed this and a rush of guilt entered through his body. Maybe it was a touchy subject for Cloud. "you don't have to answer if you don't want to." Zack spoke up.

Cloud shook his head, wanting to tall him who he was, "He was my best friend, he was the only one who would talk to me when we were first put together in class because most of the other students hated me for things that I don't want to talk about," Cloud paused for a minuet and took a deep breath and carried on "His name was Reno and he used to share this room with me before you came along. He got sent away to a different school because he was always in fights because of me."

Zack saw Clouds eyes start to water and plus he was curious of what Cloud looked like without his glasses, so he reached over to Cloud and took his glasses of from his face. He looked at his face closely, he looked cuter without his glasses on, it showed of his big blue eyes. Zack brushed away the tears that were threatening to come out of Clouds eye. He smiled when he saw that Cloud was blushing as he noticed how close Zack was to his face.

"Do you have a habit of taking things from people without asking" Cloud pushed Zack away whilst changing the subject and took his glasses from his hand and put them back on again. Zack smiled at the thought of Cloud not being upset any more, for the first time he felt that he should protect the blonde boy from all the bad things in life so he could just see him smile, like in those photos on his desk.

Zack felt a light hand on his shoulder "Zack, are you alright, you were staring at the wall for sometime" Zack snapped out of whatever he was in and nodded.

"Yeah I'm fine,"

There was a awkward silence between them, "Hey Zack," Cloud asked as he broke the silence. Zack just went 'hm'. Cloud looked up at Zack with innocent eyes "are we friends?" he innocently asked Zack.

Zack gave him a warm smile, "Yes we are." he watched as Cloud gave him a rare smile, for a while he felt good about himself when he saw Cloud smile.

"So Cloud, how about showing me around the school since it's a free period and we are in the same class together." Zack said to Cloud, who nodded and put his book away and fixed his glasses. And with that Cloud went to show Zack around the school.

Thanks for reading xx


	3. A tour to remember

**Chapter two – A tour to remember ?**

Hey everybody, just to let you know this might be my last chapter for a couple of weeks from know because I'm going on holiday soon and so I wanted to post something before I go. Also I decided to do a chapter on this particular fic because it looks like this one is more popular than Make it out alive, but don't worry I will continue on doing chapters for it, but it won't be more frequent than this one.

I do not own Final Fantasy

XxXxXxX

Cloud lead Zack out of their room; luckily for Cloud most of the boys where either in their dorms catching up on some asleep or trying to sneak their way into the girls rooms. "This is the boys' dorm and it carries on along this corridor. There are two other sections upstairs and one down stairs, so try not to get lost" Cloud said to Zack, who just nodded and looked around at the empty corridor. He followed Cloud out of the dorms and outside to the garden that separated the boys and girls dorms from the school, "um this is the school garden where you can hang out or do anything, it's not that interesting, but it's where I normally hang out after I finished lessons ."

Zack looked around the garden, it had a posh water fountain (not the ones you drink from) surrounded by different types of flowers, there were benches placed around the garden and a arch way covered in roses and ivory leading the way into the school. Zack was lost for words, it was so beautiful, he had never seen anything like this before. At his old school they didn't even have anything like this.

"Hey Zack, this way," Cloud said bringing Zack back to reality. Zack nodded and followed Cloud into the main building of the school. "This is our tutor room, it's where we get registered and events happen in them." It was a small room and it looked like it held at least 20 students inside it and the room was covered in form photos and drawings.

"Who's our form tutor?" Zack asked looking into the window of the locked room.

"It's Mr. Hawkley, but don't worry he is really nice," Cloud smiled. Zack smiled at Cloud, he liked that thought that Cloud was opening up to him. He watched as Cloud blushed and looked away "u-um this way," Cloud quickly said as he lead Zack around the rest of the school until it came to the PE department. "This is the final thing I'm going to show you before lessons start." Zack noticed that Cloud was looking at his watch and checking if anyone was around.

"Hey buddy, are you alright –" Zack was cut of by a group of boys laughing and talking really loudly and Cloud tugging at his shirt.

"Zack how about I show you this another day, we should really be going so –"

"Oi blondie who's your friend, are you gonna try to get into his pants as well!" a boy with brown hair, dressed in a football kit, shouted at Cloud. His friends laughed. Cloud clenched his fists, he really hated the football team. "if I were you I would get away as soon as possible mate, he's like a disease," the boy carried on saying and the others joined in with the comments. By this time Zack was furious, he walked up to the group of boys and ignoring Clouds pleas and tapped the leader on the shoulder.

"You think that's funny don't you," Zack said in a menacing tone, "you think, just because you're the captain of the football team you make other fear you and bow down to you, but believe me we all know that inside your just a coward and make fun of others to hide the pain and envy you have of others .I pity you. And by the way, if you _ever _think about doing or saying anything to Cloud, I will find out and I will hurt you." and with that Zack walked away leaving the group of boys speechless, he took a hold of Clouds arm and dragged him away from them.

"Zack?"

"Cloud, if any of those boys say anything to you, you tell me no matter what," Zack firmly said, Cloud just nodded.

"Um Zack, thanks for that, you really didn't have to say that to him." Cloud told him.

"What kind of friend would I be if I let dickheads like them say bad things about you and get away with it," Zack ruffled Clouds hair, "now how about we get going to our lesson." Zack said with a big smile as he saw Clouds blue eyes light up. Cloud gave Zack another smile and lead him to their first lesson.

Thanks for reading xx

Sorry if Zack was bit out of character O_O and sorry for the short chapter, when I'm back I will write a longer chapter :)


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